


The Only Living Boys in New York

by wanttobeatree



Series: Things to Do in New York When You're Not Dead [2]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Domestic, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-31
Updated: 2013-09-21
Packaged: 2017-11-17 11:26:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/551043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanttobeatree/pseuds/wanttobeatree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>True love. Superhero teams. Neither course runs smooth. (Sequel to A Very, Very, Very Fine House.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [The Only Living Boys in New York](https://archiveofourown.org/works/584679) by [betty5271](https://archiveofourown.org/users/betty5271/pseuds/betty5271)



> 1) New readers, you'll have to read the previous fic for this one to make any lick of sense. Old readers, I'm sorry this has been such a long time coming!
> 
> 2) The number of chapters is just a rough estimate right now. Likewise, the fic rating. Because I can never quite tell how long a planned chapter is really going to end up being, and nor can I tell how much porn is going to happen ahead of time.
> 
> 3) I am A REALLY SLOW WRITER, sorry. Bear with me /o\ No matter how long it may take, I am always working on this fic.
> 
> 4) Title from the Simon and Garfunkel song of roughly the same name.

Tony can’t see a damn thing.

He’s wrapped in darkness. He’s floating in it, as thick and cold and deep as the bottom of the ocean, pressing in around him and creeping inside with every breath. He tries to shout, but his voice makes no sound; tries to touch a hand to his chest, thinking of the light that should be right _there_ \- but he can’t find himself beneath his fingers. He can’t find his fingers. 

For a while, that’s all there is, until he feels air against his face. 

The black tide moves past him while Tony remains still, suspended. There’s a speck of light in the far, far distance, but when he wills it to come closer – jaw clenched and eyes watering with the effort – it obeys him, and a wind picks up around him. Nothingness whistles past his ears. Tony reaches out with fingers he can’t see or feel and pulls the speck of light towards him. It grows bigger and bigger; no longer a speck at all, but something vast and distant and moving at an incredible speed. The wind howls.

He closes his eyes and clenches his teeth and lets the universe crash over his head like a tidal wave. When he opens his eyes again, the stars are blurring past him. Tiny galaxies whistle past his ears faster than he can count them. Great clouds of nebulae tangle, briefly, in his hair. There is a brighter pinprick of light far ahead of him and Tony wills it to move faster. 

The wind becomes a roar. The light becomes a circle, then a ring, a hole in the universe – expanding, expanding, and rushing forwards to meet him.

There’s something on the other side of that blue-white light.

He realises too late that the light isn’t moving forwards, but upwards – or rather, it isn’t moving at all, because Tony is the one moving.

Tony is the one falling down into it.

 

*

 

He jerks awake too quickly, wide-eyed, panting, tangled in his sheets. He throws his hands up in the dark, with his hands bent out and his palms forward. It takes him a moment to remember that he’s not wearing the suit’s gauntlets. Another moment to remember that he is awake, was asleep, has only had – for fuck’s sake – a freaky dream.

“Jesus,” he groans, flopping back onto his pillow. He kicks the sheets off the bed and onto the floor. Belatedly, he rolls over to check Pepper is already up and gone, which she is. 

Her side of the bed is cold.

Tony lets out a breath, dragging his hands down his face.

“Sir?”

“Hit the lights, JARVIS,” he says through his fingers. “Update me. You know, the usual.”

“Very good, sir.”

“And don’t take that tone of voice with me, young man.”

“My tone is, as ever, sir, precisely how you programmed it to be,” JARVIS replies smoothly.

The blackout screens filter away from the windows and the sunlight streams through. News headlines and weather reports scroll across the glass faster than Tony cares to read them. Lying back, he puts his hand over his eyes. He looks through his fingers at the cracks of light, reddish with blood and skin where his fingers touch, fall gold in the gaps between.

With his other hand, he rubs the rim of the arc reactor.

“The time is 9:17 am,” JARVIS is saying. “Temperature 61.16°F, 16.2°C. Humidity 44%, wind speed eleven miles per hour and blowing south westerly. Excellent conditions for the armour. Would you care for a summary of the current headlines?”

“Nah, skip that. Tell me where everyone is.”

“Of course, sir.”

JARVIS whirs softly as he collects his data; he’d probably whistle if he could. Tony spreads his fingers while he waits, watching the light between his fingers grow into solid glimpses of the room, the window, the sky. Then he presses his fingers back together so the edges become a dull, red glow again. Then he drops his hand.

“Ms Potts is currently in a meeting, reviewing the budget with heads of department,” JARVIS says. “I’m sure you would be welcome to join her until your meeting with Colonel Fury.”

“Pass.”

“Dr Banner is showering. Mr Odinson is in his quarters, experimenting with the verbal lighting commands. Captain Rogers fears he has broken the coffee machine and is thus making tea instead.”

“We _have_ tea?”

“Dr Banner owns the tea, but there is a 93% probability that he has no objections to sharing. Agents Barton and Romanoff,” JARVIS adds, “are already at SHIELD’s New York headquarters.”

“Well, aren’t they a pair of eager beavers.”

Tony stands, yawns, stretching his arms and flexing his fingers. His skin feels itchy on the inside. He walks to the window and, with a swipe of his hand, brushes the scrolling text aside to leave the view clear. The city spreads far out below him. It shines. Four months on, there is still scaffolding all around the blocks closest to the tower, the area worst hit by the attack.

“What’s the schedule on the reconstruction?”

“Nearing completion, sir. Only a few major projects are still in progress, all scheduled to be finished within the first week of October.”

“Funding still going through okay?”

“Indeed. I believe many small businesses have taken it as a chance to refurbish.”

“Good. Nothing worse than an ugly deli.”

The sun is in his eyes. He touches a hand to the glass and blue light ripples out around his fingers, quickly reforming into a list of – something. Tony doesn’t read it. He remembers the sensation of falling. 

“You ever dream, JARVIS?” he says.

“Not to my knowledge, sir, no.”

“You should try it sometime.”

“I will endeavour to do so.”

Tony smirks. He drops his hand and steps away, ignoring the itch deep beneath his skin. When he snaps his fingers, the doors to his closet glide open and he steps inside. Bypassing the rows of shoes and ties, he snaps his fingers again so the racks of shirts begin to slowly rotate, bringing new shirts up to the front until the cycle pulls them back again.

“Any sartorial preferences this morning, sir?”

“Big day today,” he says. “Surprise me.”

“Of course, sir.”

 

*

 

SHIELD’s New York base is everything the Helicarrier is not, starting with the fact that it can’t fly or turn invisible and working its way down from there. The place is temporary, thrown together, and smells constantly, faintly of mildew. There are no windows in the conference room.

Standing dimly in the artificial light, Fury rests his knuckles on the conference table and leans forward to stare, slowly, at each of them in turn. Tony swivels around in his chair to watch everyone meet Fury’s eyes without flinching, although Thor is the only one to muster up an affable smile in the face of the stinkeye. Being an alien Viking god prince is one hell of a confidence boost. Who knew?

Fury clears his throat and Tony quickly swivels back to face him, saluting him.

“Well, Stark?” Fury says. “Is this a mutiny?”

Romanoff shifts minutely.

“Ah,” Tony says. He sucks in a breath through his teeth, seesawing his hand back and forth. “Actually, I think you’ll find we’re the ones with the Captain. And you’re, Nick, I hate to break it to you, but you’re the one whose lifestyle choices include an eye patch. So if anything I guess we’re... regaining control of your pirate ship. This is an antimutiny.”

Someone kicks him under the table. 

“Sir,” Romanoff begins.

“Okay, okay,” Tony says, holding up his hands, and Romanoff rolls her eyes but falls silent. “No more pirate jokes, let’s cut to the chase. You know as well as I do this isn’t going to work. The Avengers are currently the most famous group of loveable misfits in the world and SHIELD? I think officially you guys don’t even _exist_.”

He stands, because he always thinks better, talks better, when he’s moving. Pacing along the edge of the room, he raps his knuckles on the back of each chair he passes. Fury’s gaze follows him. 

Tony smiles brightly at it, and says, “You’re super-secret, we’re just plain super. You fell face first into the black leather clothes store, we’re about five sequins and Black Widow’s hair extensions short of a drag queen on Mardi Gras. How’s that supposed to work together? I mean, have you _seen_ Cap’s costume?”

He snaps his fingers and points at Steve, until Steve sits up straighter in his seat and clears his throat and says, slowly, “I guess the colours are a little... vivid.”

“Yeah, and the Pope’s a little religious.”

“Get to the point, Stark,” Fury says.

“My point,” he y says, “is that right now the Avengers are riding the public opinion high. We, lady and gentlemen, are _loved_. Tony’s one of the most popular boy’s names in the world right now – what? Don’t give me that look, it is. Pepper showed me.”

Fury rolls his eye, standing up straight and folding his arms. He clears his throat in a way that says _I could kill you and make it look like an accident._ Tony grins across at him and, continuing his stroll along the table, pats Thor on the shoulder.

“Class of ’31 is gonna have a buttload of thunder gods in it, too.”

“It is an honour,” Thor says cheerfully, because nobody, not even Fury, could kill him and make it look like an accident.

“But it’s not gonna last. _That’s_ my point. I’m a futurist, and I have more PR experience in my pinkie finger than the rest of you put together. I can see how this is gonna go. Opinion sours, the shine wears off, and pretty soon all our little Thors and Thorettas will start asking the difficult questions. Things like, oh, I don’t know...” 

Tony taps his chin in deep, sarcastic thought. “Like, who the hell are these devilishly attractive people anyway? Where did they come from? Who put this team together? Who’s controlling it _now?_ Et cetera.”

Softly, Steve says, “SHIELD.”

“We have a winner. 90% of the answers to those questions are ‘big, scary, faceless organisation with an invisible flying machine and a leather fetish.’ That will go down _so_ well with the populace.”

He pauses, taking a breath, and then when Fury – standing tall and silent, arms crossed – raises an eyebrow at him, Tony spreads his hands and shrugs. He slides back down into his empty seat, drumming his fingers on the edge of the table.

“Way I see it, the way we are right now, it’s too big to fail - and it _will_ fail. You know it, I know it. SHIELD is exposed, we get dragged down with you. Or the Avengers lose favour, and you and all your leather accessories get dragged down with _us_. We need to cut the apron strings fast, while people still like us. Okay, speech over.”

Done, Tony leans back in his chair and crosses his arms. 

The chair creaks; it’s the only sound in the silence that has descended on the conference room. Tony leans forwards and then back again, first with one shoulder and then the other, testing how the squeaky joint responds to different degrees of pressure. Next to him, Bruce winces and Clint mimes something enthusiastically violent from the other side of the table. Fury, frowning in thought, ignores it.

Tony braces a foot against the table leg and starts to swivel his chair back and forth, until he jars to a halt. He looks down at Steve’s hand on the arm of his chair. Steve is sitting straight-backed, staring up at Fury intently as if he’s waiting for new orders, but when Tony pushes against the grip on his armrest it only tightens, until he can’t swing his chair in either direction.

Tony narrows his eyes at Steve. Steve, glancing sideways, smirks at him.

The silence is broken by Fury clearing his throat. 

“Agents, you’re in support of this?”

Barton straightens up sharply, snapping to attention. “Sir, yessir. Moonlighting, sir.”

“Yes, sir,” Romanoff says.

Fury turns to her and she adds, with a small shrug, “I think Stark’s right. The Avengers are too public to work well with SHIELD now. Clint and I have been compromised.”

“There’ll always be a place for you at SHIELD,” Fury says.

“Desk work,” Barton snorts.

“We’d like to... remain active in the field,” Romanoff translates, arching an eyebrow at him. “And continue to make use of our skill sets. We would still liaise with SHIELD where appropriate.”

Fury nods slowly. He drums his fingers on his leather-clad arm and then nods again, sharper, and he says, “Okay. Stark, I see your point. Romanoff, Barton, you’re reassigned.”

“Thank you, sir,” Romanoff says.

Barton silently punches the air and Thor, not so silently, throws his arms up and cheers. He grabs Bruce, sitting next to him, and pulls him into a tight embrace that leaves Bruce jerkily, awkwardly, patting him on the back.

“What?” Tony says. “That’s _it?”_

“It’ll take some paperwork,” Fury says to Romanoff and Barton, who nod along with his words. “Someone will forward it to you. I’m assigning an agent to act as liaison. Will that,” he adds, with a glance that sweeps around the table; his gaze settles on Steve, “be all?”

“Yes, sir,” Steve says.

Fury nods, and straightens up, and heads for the door.

“ _No_ , sir. Hold it.” 

Tony leaps up out of his chair, sending it rolling across the floor until it bounces off the wall behind him. When Fury keeps on walking, Tony follows him to the door and through it, grabbing him by the arm as the door swings shut behind them.

Drawing to a halt in that cramped, windowless corridor, Fury looks down at Tony’s hand and then looks up at Tony, face impassive. 

Tony lets go.

“Yes, Mr Stark?” Fury says. 

“ _Okay?_ ” Tony echoes. “That’s all? I mean, no offence, but I thought you’d put up more of a fight. I prepared a _speech._ Isn’t this whole thing supposed to be your super-secret boyband baby?”

Fury keeps on staring at him for a moment, until Tony has to surreptitiously check he’s not still holding onto Fury’s coat. When he smiles, Tony takes a quick step back, but,

“Stark,” Fury says. “You know how long I’ve been a member of SHIELD?”

“Uh...?”

“A little over forty years. Started as a new recruit when your old man was still in charge, but he stepped down a couple years later. His wife was pregnant. Things have changed a lot since then.”

“I’m confused. Did I accidentally say ‘dear Mr Fury, please tell me your life story’, or-”

“When I die,” Fury says loudly, flatly, speaking over Tony until Tony shuts up, “or retire, I suppose, if I’m lucky, I don’t get much say in who takes over from me as Director. Used to, but things change. Oh, I get a vote. Sure, a vote... if I’m still alive to make it. Me and every member of the Council gets a vote.”

Tony pauses, thinking Fury’s words through.

“The same council as in... ‘hey, let’s fire a nuke at New York’, that council we all know and love?”

“The very same.” Fury inclines his head. “Anyway, to answer your question... I like to think I’m old enough and ugly enough to know when a project has outgrown the organisation that created it. I’m sure a genius like you is familiar with the phrase ‘if you love something, let it go.’”

“Britney Spears, right?”

“Right,” Fury says. “Stark.”

“Colonel,” Tony says, with a nod.

“You’re playing in the big league now. Don’t screw it up.” Fury turns and strides away down the corridor, long coat flapping out behind him, pausing mid-step to throw back over his shoulder, “I scratch your back, you scratch mine.”

Tony waits until Fury has disappeared around the corner. Then he draws in a deep breath, lets it out slowly. Flexing his fingers, he turns back to the conference room door and catches Steve’s eye through the window. Steve’s sitting up straight, staring over everyone’s heads with his expression inscrutable, as if he’d been watching Tony and Fury’s exchange from across the room and through the glass. Tony nods at him. He pushes the door open and four heads whip around to look at him while Steve looks away.

“Okay, children,” Tony says. “Fess up, who kicked me?”

Bruce clears his throat, raising a hand.

“I’m not angry, Bruce, I’m disappointed.”

“All is well?” Thor asks.

“All is 100% well.” Tony steps back, holding the door open with his foot. “Let’s blow this Popsicle stand – it means go,” he adds automatically. “Let’s go.”

Chairs scrape, shoes scuff the floor. Leaning back against the doorframe, Tony crosses his arms and watches everyone file out. Thor pats him on the shoulder as he passes by, making Tony’s knees buckle. Bruce neatly steps over the leg Tony sticks out to trip him, with a smile and a little bow.

Barton, squeezing past with Romanoff, whispers sotto voce, “If the answers behind the Avengers are 90% SHIELD, what’s the other 10%?”

“Bifrost,” Romanoff replies.

“God bless the alien rainbow bridge,” Barton says, their voices drifting off down the corridor together.

Tony waits, watching Steve fiddle with his ugly leather jacket and straighten the collar of his ugly plaid shirt. He taps the dial of his watch when Steve looks up at him.

“You don’t have to wait,” Steve says. “I know the way.”

“Leave no man behind.”

“I know the way,” Steve says again on his way out the door.

“Yeah, I know you do.”

Tony kicks the door shut behind him. Shoving his hands into his pockets, ruining the line of his $5000 dollar suit, he follows Steve down the corridor, taking 1.2 steps for each one of Steve’s. Steve glances sideways at him four times, but doesn’t say a word. Tony pretends he isn’t counting.

Outside, in the sunlight, there’s a helicopter waiting to carry all six of them home.

 

*

 

Tony makes a beeline for the couch the second he’s through the door. He flops down onto it and swings his feet up to rest on the coffee table. Leans his head back, closes his eyes. He can feel a headache building, scratching at the back of his brain. He listens to the noises that move around him: the departing chopper; five new pairs of footsteps filling up his tower; the sound of someone, gently, closing the balcony door behind them. Steve, Tony figures, or maybe Bruce.

“Bruce,” Steve says, his voice coming from the edge of the room but moving closer. “How are those tests going?”

“Still inconclusive,” Bruce sighs – Tony, with his eyes still closed, cocks his head. Only a few feet away. Steve, then, who closed the door. “I think I need a few more days, maybe a week.”

“That’s fine,” Steve says, closer still.

Someone with large hands delicately lifts Tony’s wrist up from the couch cushion he’s sprawled across and moves it into Tony’s lap. Tony opens his eyes to squint up at Thor.

“My friend,” Thor says, “I fear you may need larger seating arrangements.”

Thor sits down where Tony’s arm had been, making the couch creak; it’s already a pretty big couch, but Thor is a bigger guy. Tony magnanimously moves to the side, drawing his limbs in tighter as he looks around the room at them all. Steve is sitting on the floor on the other side of the coffee table, with his legs crossed so he looks more like a schoolboy than a living legend; Bruce, sitting next to Steve, looks completely normal, because he’s the kind of guy who probably sits on floors for fun. 

“JARVIS, add it to the agenda. Item one: couch,” Tony says. 

Thor next to him, still in his cape; Romanoff is sitting neatly on Thor’s other side with Barton next to _her_ , half on the couch and half on the arm rest. 

_Well_ , Tony finds himself thinking, _this is it. The team._

“Bigger couch,” he adds, sitting up a little straighter. “Maybe two. There are a lot of us, and Thor and Cap probably weigh more than the rest of the team put together. Item two: press conference. As in, we’ll need to schedule one.”

“Oh, goodie,” Bruce murmurs.

“We should wait until Fury has assigned a SHIELD liaison,” Romanoff says. “The agent will need to know what we’re going to do and say.”

“What about military and police?” Steve asks, and then when Romanoff raises an eyebrow at him, he adds, “I don’t want us stepping on anyone’s toes.”

Tony waves a hand. “It’s fine, I have a man on the military inside. And the NYPD have a collective crush on you, Cap; you can sweet talk ‘em. The rest, I’ll consult with legal. And we’ll need a publicist. Maybe we could register as a non-profit...”

He trails off, dragging his hands down his face. Nobody else says anything after that. Tony tips his head back and stares up at the ceiling until his eyes start to water, and then he closes his eyes. He wonders if Pepper is still in that meeting. He wonders if this is the mother of all midlife crises or just a psychotic break. Press conference, he thinks. Press conference, publicist, call Rhodey, call legal, and then – what? If Bruce’s tests don’t work, if HYDRA stays in hiding, if aliens don’t invade the planet again, then _what?_

Thor starts to hum something slow that rumbles sonorously through the couch cushions and into Tony’s skull.

Bruce clears his throat.

“Jesus,” Tony says, eyes snapping open. “I can feel myself aging here. Bruce, what’s your favourite colour?”

“I – what?”

“Come on. Let’s do this thing. We’ll be braiding Thor’s hair in no time.”

“We... will?” Thor says uncertainly.

“No, probably not. Don’t leave me hanging, Bruce.”

“Well, I...” Bruce takes his glasses off and wipes them on the edge of shirt, frowning. “Blue, I guess?”

“Calm, blue oceans, huh?”

“Something like that.”

Tony grins at him. Twisting in his seat, he turns to the right and points at Barton, who sighs.

“Barton.”

“We’re really doing this?”

“My tower, my rules,” Tony says. “We’re doing this. Barton, best thing you’ve ever shot?”

“What, you mean other than _aliens?_ ”

“Yes, other than _aliens_. This is a voyage into the unknown, here. We’re not ready to reminisce about the good old days yet.”

Barton rolls his eyes. Swinging his feet up onto the arm rest, he crosses his legs and props his elbows on his knees, his chin on his knuckles. He looks about one pointy hat and a fishing rod away from becoming a lawn ornament.

“A shark,” he says. “In the eye.”

“That was a fluke,” Romanoff says.

“It still happened though, didn’t it? Stark didn’t say best thing I’ve shot that I was definitely aiming for.”

“I’ll allow it,” Tony declares. “Widow, you’re up. Uh... favourite food?”

“What,” she says, in her flattest monotone, “you mean other than my sexual partners?”

Down on the floor, Bruce coughs violently and buries his face in his hands and Barton lets out a great cackle of laughter, throwing his head back and slapping his knee. Romanoff blinks at them both as if she has no idea what the problem is. Patting Bruce on the back, Steve covers his mouth with his other hand. He closes his eyes. Tony can’t tell if he’s laughing or disapproving, only that the tips of his ears are pink.

He watches Steve for a moment longer, and then turns back to Romanoff. The corners of her mouth twitch upwards while she watches Bruce regain control of his lungs. _Gotcha_ , Tony thinks.

“You’re a dark horse, Romanoff,” he says.

She drops her expression of blank innocence just long enough to smirk across at him over Thor’s bowed head.

“But I don’t understand,” Thor says, rubbing his beard. “You eat...?”

“The black widow is a kind of spider,” Romanoff explains. “Genus Latrodectus. The female is famous for cannibalising its sexual partners after mating with them. Highly venomous. I’ve never eaten anyone,” she adds, patting Thor on the knee. “I like apple strudel.”

Tony raises an eyebrow at her. She shrugs.

“Obviously I don’t eat it regularly, with my training regime. But more regularly than Clint shoots sharks.”

“Hey, Barton, aim for a hawk’s eye next time,” Tony says. “Make a thing of it. You wanted a new hobby, right?”

“I’ll shoot _you_ in the eye,” Barton mutters.

Tony grins. He grins around at them all, at Bruce’s slightly bashful expression now he’s stopped coughing and at Thor’s blatant relief that Romanoff isn’t a cannibal.

“We’re learning valuable stuff here,” he says. He lifts a hand and ticks it off on his fingers. “Bruce likes calm, blue oceans, Barton likes injuring sealife, Romanoff doesn’t like eating people. Thor, you’re up.”

Thor sits up straighter, the whole couch shaking with the motion. He looks grave. This probably _is_ valuable stuff to him. Midgardian bonding rituals 101.

“Favourite thing about Midgard? Don’t,” he adds quickly, “say Jane.”

“Ah.” Thor rests his chin on his knuckles, frowning. “The, ah... the spiky plant.”

There’s a pause. Tony slowly turns to stare at Thor, who is still frowning in deep thought. Beyond his giant, alien shoulders, Tony catches Barton’s eye and mouths, incredulously, ‘ _What?_ ’ Barton quickly turns his face away, covering his mouth with his hand not quite fast enough to hide his choking snort of laughter.

“Cactuses?” Bruce says.

“Yes, that’s the word!” 

Thor grins and then, lifting his head and taking in the team’s expressions, grins even wider. “My friends, you must understand, Asgard is a cooler realm than yours. We have no deserts. Had I not seen it with my own eyes, I would have thought no living thing could dwell in such – such sand and heat. Truly, they’re the plants of warriors.”

Barton slowly drags his hand up his face to cover his eyes, his shoulders shaking.

“What’s Asgard like?” Steve asks, softly.

It’s the first time he’s spoken since they started playing this stupid game and Tony turns to look at him. He’s still sitting there cross-legged, looking calm and thoughtful as he leans forwards to listen to Thor’s answer. His hair fastidiously parted, his hands folded in his lap. The tips of his ears are still pink and Tony still doesn’t know if it was laughter or disapproval that he had hidden behind his hand.

“It’s... I’m no poet, Captain,” Thor says, “but...”

Steve gazes slides sideways to Tony. He looks startled for a moment, then raises an eyebrow. Tony realises that he’s frowning while he stares at Steve. He shrugs, looking away.

“It hangs in the stars,” Thor is saying. “Like a jewel. And there are pine trees in the mountains, and in the summer months, flowers bloom across the city like – like further, smaller jewels.”

Tony hates not knowing.

“You ever considered the Asgardian tourism potential?” he says, loudly, over Thor. “You’d make millions. That magical Einstein-Rosen bridge of yours would make Virgin Galactic look the Montgolfier bros. Man, their stock has _plummeted_ since New York. Who knew alien invasion would be so bad for the space tourism industry? But you, people like.”

“I’m not sure that would be wise,” Thor says. “And besides, we have no need for Midgardian riches.”

“No,” Tony says. “I guess not.”

He glances back at Steve. Steve’s looked away.

“Cap.” He snaps his fingers until Steve looks at him. “What’s your-”

“Hold it, Stark.”

Tony double-takes extravagantly, peering around with raised eyebrows, and he says, “Barton, I didn’t know you cared.”

Barton folds his arms and lifts up his chin. “I don’t, but you’ve been going clockwise consistently. So it’s your turn to answer a dumb question, if you’re doing this right.”

“Me? I’m an open book.”

Barton rolls his eyes, scoffing, and Tony flips him off, but Bruce clears his throat and says, “He’s right, though. You _have_ been going clockwise.”

“Bruce, how could you?”

“Pretty easily. Sorry.”

“Fine, you traitor. Come on, let’s get this over with.”

He looks around at them all. Barton shrugs.

“Well,” Steve says, “what are you working on right now?”

Tony draws in a deep breath. He holds up a hand and, “Let’s see. New armour, obviously,” he says, ticking it off on his fingers. “Got an electric car in development. Water filtration device, that’s our Wakanda contract, very hush-hush. Working on an airborne surveillance system. Upgrading JARVIS for his birthday.”

“You’re too kind, sir.”

“Many happy returns.” He wiggles his fingers at Barton. “That enough for you?”

“So do you get JARVIS a cake?” Barton says.

“And do what with it? Rub it on his motherboard?”

“Hell if I know. _You’re_ the eccentric billionaire with a British butler computer, you think of something.” 

Tony sighs heavily, rolling his eyes and dropping his hand, and says in a sing-song voice, “No, Barton, JARVIS is 100% cake-free. Now, can we continue?”

“I’ll allow it.”

“Cap.” He snaps his fingers again. “Favourite, uh... No, I’ve got it. Best thing you’ve hit with your shield. Personally,” he adds to Barton, sotto voce, “I’m rooting for killer whale.”

“That,” Barton mutters, “I’d pay to see.”

Sniggering, Tony turns back to Steve. He’s frowning, a hand over his mouth. He shakes his head when Tony catches his eye.

“I don’t know,” he says. “It was a war, I was a soldier. Most of the time I just threw it at Nazis and HYDRA. Red Skull, I guess?”

“If we hadn’t all been beating up aliens a few months ago, Red Skull would be pretty damn impressive,” Barton says. With a shrug, he adds, “Less impressive now.”

“Sorry.”

“Well, it’s a cross we’ve all gotta bear.” Barton stands, stretching extravagantly and says, around a yawn, “Good work, team. It’s been real. I’m going now.”

That’s Romanoff’s cue to get to her feet. She nods at Tony.

“We should make a start on Fury’s paperwork,” she says.

The two of them drift away together. The spell breaks; Bruce’s watch starts beeping, signalling a crucial point in some time-sensitive experiments, and he flees; Thor declares that he has to tell Jane of the day’s victories. He pats Tony on the knee as he goes. Tony will be feeling that for days, he’s sure.

“And there were two,” he says, rubbing his knee.

He looks around the room. It’s huge – of course it’s huge, because he and Pepper share an appreciation for wide open spaces, warehouses, cathedrals. It had seemed a lot smaller five minutes ago, when it was full of people. But you adapt.

He looks at Steve.

“I think that was the longest conversation I’ve ever had with people I wasn’t trying to sell something.”

“Well, I know for a fact that’s not true,” Steve says. “If nothing else, you and JARVIS gossip like a pair of old ladies in a grocery store.”

Tony stands, stretches, rubs an aching joint or two. Rounding the coffee table, he reaches out a hand to Steve without really thinking about it. Steve has already grabbed hold and pulled himself smoothly up onto his feet before Tony remembers that Steve is a supersoldier, that Steve holds himself like a gymnast vacationing in a brick shithouse. Steve could probably stand up gracefully with both ankles tied behind his head.

“I built JARVIS, so technically when I talk to him I’m talking to myself.”

“Sir, I strongly dispute this hypothesis.”

Steve smiles up at the ceiling, tilting his head back like most people do when faced with a disembodied voice – as if JARVIS were some kind of sarcastic god – and he says, “I think I agree with JARVIS on this one.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

Steve chuckles, ceiling-ward. Then he finger-combs his hair and smoothes his shirt and looks back down at Tony again.

“I’ll see you later,” he says.

Tony nods, salutes. Standing where he is, he watches Steve circle around the table and the couch and head towards the elevator. Tony runs his hand across the back of the couch. They’ll need a bigger one. No, two. And a press conference, a publicist, a consultation with legal. He needs to call Rhodey. He needs –

“Hey,” Tony calls.

Steve pauses with his finger on the elevator button. He presses it before he turns around.

“This is a good idea, right?” Tony says. “We’re not totally crazy. Someone would have noticed by now, if we were having a six person psychotic break.”

Steve’s lips twitch. He hesitates, and then sticks his foot between the elevator doors to keep them from closing. Folding his arms, he leans against the edge of the door and he says, slowly, “I think this is a good idea. I don’t think we’re crazy.”

Tony breathes out.

“Okay, great, that’s – Gotta trust Captain America. It probably counts as treason if you don’t.”

“It’s not treason-”

“I was joking-”

“-but you do have to pay a fine.”

They speak over each other, then stare at each other. Tony grins. He pushes his hands into his pockets and rocks back and forth on his heels. Steve does nothing but smile – but he doesn’t leave.

“You going all the way down?” Tony says.

“I am,” Steve says. He shifts to the side, keeping his foot against the edge of the door until Tony has passed through into the elevator. Tony presses his hand to the wall and drags a finger down to tap the blue light basement button.

“Hey,” Tony says as Steve steps back and the elevator doors slide shut. “Wanna come see my super secret basement labs? I promised you a tour someday.”

“Actually, I was going to take my bike out for a spin. But some other time?”

“Sure.”

They stand in silence, but not uncomfortably. The elevator swoops downwards with a silken whisper and Tony can’t suppress the itch of pride that it barely feels like movement, as if the basement were the one rushing politely up to meet them. He thinks of his dream, that sensation of falling, for just one second and then he pushes it aside. Press conference, he tells himself, publicist, Rhodey, legal. He can feel that headache rising up again, like the beat of a heart between skull and skin.

“Your airborne surveillance,” Steve says, suddenly. “That’s the... the camera I took to Chacabuco, isn’t it?”

“Bastard cam, you mean?” 

Steve rolls his eyes. “Yeah, that one.”

“I’m trying to get the little bastard flying.” Tony grins up at Steve, who huffs out a disgruntled breath. “But without actually attaching any repulsor tech to it. Ideally we’d want a whole fleet of them, flying independently, so they need to be dispensable. I start letting teeny, tiny, annoying repulsors fly around in battle, I might as well just turn my workshop into a garage sale. It’d be less messy and at least I’d get a buck or two.”

“So how’s it going?”

Tony shrugs. “I’m working on it.”

Steve smiles sideways at him. For a moment Tony’s damn sure he’s going to say something like ‘you can do it’ or ‘I believe in you’, to which Tony would respond with something sarcastic, but Steve’s jaw shifts and he swallows and his mouth stays closed, the smile fading until he’s just looking at Tony out of the corner of his eye.

“Hey,” Tony says. “Whatever the hell it is that HYDRA’s up to, we’re going to stop it.”

Steve stares down at him, turning to face him properly and blinking in surprise, and then he lets out a laugh. “Well, of course we are. I know that.”

“You’ve been kinda...” Tony shrugs, looks away. He waves a hand at Steve’s face. “Quiet. Long-faced. Downhearted. Since you got back from Peru with that headfuck of a gun.”

“Oh.” Steve pauses. “I didn’t mean to – It’s not HYDRA, it’s just something I’ve been figuring out.”

“Something bad?”

“No, I... Well, I.” He cuts himself off and lets out a low breath. After a moment’s hesitation, his lips twist upwards into a rueful smile. “You’d probably think it was dumb.”

“Try me.”

Steve opens his mouth and the elevator glides to its silken halt, the doors sliding open onto the underground parking lot. Neither of them moves for a moment. Closing his mouth again, Steve rubs the back of his neck and looks out towards his motorcycle. Tony stares up at him.

“Basement level,” JARVIS intones in the dragging silence.

“Seriously, try me,” Tony says again.

“No,” Steve says. “Not today, anyhow.”

He steps out, and Tony follows him, rapping his knuckles on Steve’s shoulder. He takes one and a half steps for each one of Steve’s.

“I’ll work it out sooner or later,” he says. “I’m a clever man.”

“You’re a busy man.”

“With appalling priorities.”

Steve comes to a halt next to his bike. He runs his hand over the gas tank and draws in a slow breath.

“Leave it, Tony,” he says. “Please. For now. It’s not Avengers, it’s personal.”

“Okay.” Tony takes a half-step towards Steve and then rocks back, nodding and saying again, “Okay. Alright.”

“Thank you.”

He says it softly, as though he means it. It’s that, probably, that makes Tony open his mouth again, not quite sure what he’s going to say until he’s saying it.

“Wait. Before you go. One more thing.”

“Sure.”

Steve shrugs. He slings a leg over his motorcycle and sits, resting a hand on his thigh and the other, loosely, on the handlebar grip. He has to tilt his head back to look up at Tony, while he waits, smiling faintly.

“Black Widow,” Tony says. “Were you laughing at her, back up there in our team bonding session? Humour me. I’m checking team morale.”

“Oh boy, she’s a funny lady when you get to know her.” Steve chuckles at the memory, ducking his head down. The tips of his ears, turning pink. 

Tony nods. 

“Okay, that’s all. You’re free to go, soldier.”

“I’ll see you later.”

Tony pats the gas tank and steps back, throwing Steve a messy salute while he starts the engine. The bike growls, purrs, rumbles into life like a mountain lion. Steve nods at him before he drives away.

Tony isn’t the kind of guy who stands and watches until a motorcycle has disappeared into the distance. Instead, he turns and strolls to his workshop door, high-fiving the panel to open it. The sound of the motorcycle fades into the sound of all distant traffic. The door opens.

He turns left in the antechamber, to the door that is so small and innocuous compared to the heavy steel of the Hulk playground-cum-test chamber. He dials in a quick code and, when the door unlocks with a click, steps through into the small, white room. There’s nothing inside it but a smooth, black panel on the wall opposite. He presses a hand to it, and then leans forward for the retinal scan. After a few seconds, the black ripples and fades into a solid field of green.

“Authorisation complete,” JARVIS says.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Tony says, swiping the green away with a motion of his hand. He taps a finger to the restored black and enters a long code onto the keyboard that appears beneath his fingers.

“Certainly, sir. Ms Potts has completed her final meeting of the day. At current traffic conditions, she will return to the tower within twenty-two minutes, assuming she takes a direct route.”

He hits enter. With a beep, the elevator begins to descend.

“If the meetings were bad, she’ll probably stop by Jimmy Choo on the way.”

“Noted, sir.”

The descent is just a brief one. The elevator beeps again when it reaches the bottom, the floor settling into place. Tony taps in the final exit code on the black console panel. It ripples into green one last time before the colour seeps away entirely, the panel blending seamlessly into its white surroundings, and a crack forms down the middle of the wall; a pair of automatic doors that glide open before him.

He walks through into the bright, blue light of a fully-body scan. He holds himself still until it’s scanned him from head to toe, and then he swats the lingering beams of light away.

“Identity confirmed: Anthony Edward Stark.”

“Honey, I’m home.”

He claps his hands, striding forwards. Light floods into the workshop. The metal shutters roll up from the display of Iron Man suits that lines the outer edge of the great, curving room. A hologram of his latest Mark VIII schematics floats down to hang over his workbench, rotating slowly and enticingly. Tony swats that away too.

He sits down. He drums his fingers on the edge of the desk.

“JARVIS, lights to 60% - no, make it 57%... And down another point five. That’s it.”

He leans back in the dimmed light, rubbing his eyes. He can feel at his back the familiar thrum of the arc reactor through a foot and a half of metal and glass. Call it a vanity project. Call it one last bow for Howard Stark and his beautiful, impractical giant before Tony had the blueprints destroyed. The full-sized arc reactor sits underground, in the centre of the foundations, hidden from view with Tony’s private labs and workshops wrapped in a protective circle around it. 

Call it a monument to bad relationships with deceased father-figures.

“Lift section four of the reactor shutters 20%,” he says.

With a whirr, the set of metal shutters next to his desk open up a couple feet, light spilling out through the gap to illuminate the room in white and blue. The row of armour gleams along the opposite wall. Tony turns to face the chamber, squinting into the light until he can see the arc reactor hum through the protective wall of reinforced steel and glass. His own chest throbs in sympathy.

“Hey, you never told me you quit SHIELD when Mom was pregnant,” he says. 

Then he snorts, shaking his head. “Which makes sense, as you never even told me about SHIELD anyway. Close it up again, JARVIS.”

The shutters lower again. He spins back around to his face his desk and then, after a pause, drags down the computer hologram screen. He opens a folder and pulls the two video clips inside it, motioning for b-cam-001 to play.

‘I want you down the far end,’ the Tony onscreen says into the camera. ‘Whatever comes outta-‘

“Fastforward 15%,” Tony mutters, leaning back to watch the workshop zip by while Butterfingers move into position at the far end. The camera swings around to face Steve and the other Tony, the two of them moving back and forth in the middle of the workshop, mouths moving too fast to understand.

“Pause.”

He pulls file y-cam-001 up and drags it to the adjacent screen.

“Can we sync these timestamps up again? Thanks.”

You’s camera remains in roughly the same position while JARVIS fastforwards, focussed on their backs as Steve and Tony moved and talked and pulled on their safety gear. The image freezes abruptly when it syncs with b-cam-001’s timestamp. Tony leans forward, resting his chin on his hand.

“And play,” he says.

He frowns up at the screens, watching himself pull the trigger from two different angles. The light bursts out so bright both images become, for a moment, entirely flooded with white. He watches the light on the second screen come rushing towards him, Butterfingers rolling backwards with the force of it. When the light hits the wall, the camera shakes and the screen goes blank.

“Pause. Rewind three seconds, play at 50% speed.”

He watches, looking back and forth between each screen. The light pours out like syrup. 

“Slow it down another 10%,” he mutters. 

Leaning in close, he can see the light crackle and bubble; it moves like a stop-motion capture of an icicle forming. Tendrils lick out from it, lightning fast even at this speed, reaching out towards the ceiling and the floor, searching for a surface to latch onto. It hits the wall at last and Butterfinger’s camera goes dark in a burst of static. The other clip keeps playing, the light spreading like frost across the wall. Tony stumbles back slowly, slowly into Steve and Steve lifts a hand up to Tony’s arm, the movement dreamlike.

“Down another 10%,” Tony says. “Minimise Butterfingers and rewind You point five of a second. Pause.”

He frowns up at the frozen image. On screen, Tony’s mouth is open, his hands caught very, very slowly lowering the gun. He slashes a finger around the portal’s impact zone and drags that section forwards, enlarging it.

“Jump forwards two frames?” he says.

“Sir, password override zero-zero-one in use,” JARVIS says. “Ms Potts has returned home and is currently in the Penthouse elevator.”

“Okay, great. Forwards another frame.”

“She enquires after your wellbeing.”

“I’m – JARVIS, could you clip this from, uh, here to... here.” He drags his finger over the play bar. “Save as a new file. Play.”

He watches. When the clip ends, he zooms in further, dragging the image until the screen is filled with light.

“Okay, replay. Slower.”

“Some might call that insufficient data, sir.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, baby. What’s the slowest you’ve got? Come on, impress me.”

JARVIS would sigh, Tony knows, if he could. But he obliges, and Tony leans back in his chair and watches. His eyes are aching, his head is throbbing, and there is something on the other side of that blue-white light. Of course there is, it’s a portal, they already knew that. But –

“Go back a frame,” Tony says. “Okay, make it back two. Play. Pause.”

He stares up at the screen. There’s something there, in the stars, and it’s moving.

“Back,” he says. “Play. Pause. And again.”

“Sir, Ms Potts ask when you will be up.”

Tony sighs, dropping his head onto his hands. He pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Right,” he breathes. Louder, “Tell her I’ll be up in five – no, ten. I just – I need to know what...”

He trails off. Lowering his hand, he frowns up at the screen again. The image is frozen and blurry, but there it is. A shape. A shadow, moving in the stars and the bright, white light.

Tony hates not knowing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took so long. RL has really not been conducive with writing this year, but it seems there's a light at the end of the writer's block tunnel! Also I made a mix for the fic which I've now posted on tumblr, so you can download that [HERE](http://frightfullytreeish.tumblr.com/post/61859299488/the-only-living-boys-in-new-york-fic) if you're into that.
> 
> P.S. quixotesque, I'm _forever indebted to you_ for cheering me on each and every time I rewrote that bloody scene.

“This is impossible,” Bruce mutters.

It’s been five days since their meeting with Fury, which makes it four days since Tony reclaimed and refitted the top floor R&D lab for the team - by playing, just this once, the ‘it’s my tower party and I’ll redistribute facilities if I want to’ card. The lab is still shining like it’s fresh out of the packet and Bruce’s words almost disappear into the wide space. His voice takes a moment to reach Tony’s ears, and then another moment to reach Tony’s brain.

“You’re telling me,” Tony says absently, swiping a section of casing away from the Bastard 001 schematics to peer at its holographic innards. He taps a few notes into his keyboard and taps the end of the stylus against his chin. He mutters, “Maybe we should just throw them, like frisbees.” 

And then his mouth catches up with his ears and, lowering his stylus, he turns to Bruce and says, “Wait, what’s impossible?”

Bruce lifts an eyebrow at him, lips quirking. 

“You’re really suggesting we put our surveillance system in the hands of the other guy’s competence with a frisbee?” 

“Hey, Hulky’s a good catch,” Tony says. “What’s impossible?”

Bruce’s amusement fades. 

“I still can’t get a straight answer from this thing,” he says. Hitting a couple buttons on his brand new Stark computer, he transfers a folder of readings to Tony’s database.

“Our portal pea-shooter?” Tony pulls up the results and, scrolling quickly through them with the wave of a hand, he sucks in a breath through his teeth. “Yikes.”

“It’s like it’s giving off twenty different kinds of radiation and nothing all at the same time.” 

Leaning over Tony’s shoulder, Bruce lifts his safety goggles up to rest on his hair and he unfolds his glasses from his shirt pocket, slipping them on to peer at his data. He keeps pens in his shirt pocket, too. He has a _pocket-protector_. With his safety goggles and his neat white lab coat and the clipboard in his hands, he looks like a real boy at last. 

Tony doesn’t know if that makes him Jiminy Cricket or the Blue Fairy. Scrap that thought.

“I mean, the Tesseract was an actual _alien artefact_ and we could still get a clear reading off it,” Bruce says. “Eventually.”

Sighing, he adds, “Any luck with those star coordinates?”

Tony shrugs. He turns back to his work, to frown up at the holographic circuitry of his surveillance prototype. “Not yet. Running a few programs. Turns out it’s kinda difficult, matching up a low res snapshot of a few stars in the middle of a shaky, glowy portal with – what, the other end of the universe? A parallel universe? Have we decided what we’re calling it yet?”

“Thor calls it another realm.”

“Thor,” Tony points out, “calls the microwave magic. But he says he’s got a buddy in Asgard whose job is just to watch the entirety of space and time, or something? So there’s... that option.”

Bruce begins to laugh softly, helplessly, shaking his head. “I still can’t believe this is all happening. Consulting with aliens about parallel dimensions. The world’s gone crazy.”

“Cats and dogs,” Tony murmurs, “marrying each other.”

“Life used to be so simple, when I was just on the run from the military because my mutated alter-ego destroyed half of Harlem.”

“You know what they say; the grass is always greener on the giant green mutant side.”

Bruce shakes his head again in disbelief, with a rueful smile. He scribbles a few notes onto his clipboard and slides his glasses back off nose, slipping them back into his shirt pocket to nestle among pens and pocket protector.

“I’m going to take this report back to Steve now,” he says. “I don’t think there’s much more I can do until we’ve got a clearer idea what’s going on.”

“See you later, alligator.”

Bruce squints at him.

“In a while,” he says dubiously, “crocodile.”

Returning to his desk, Bruce fusses around with his computer, saving data and shutting down applications and tidying his workspace. Tony watches him for a little while. Bruce’s desk is still gleaming white, like new. The whole lab shines under its clean, white lights. It smells faintly of bleach and echoes a little when they talk. It’s too big for just two scientists. 

After Bruce has gone, Tony claps his hands together and then throws them wide apart, and the schematics explode around him, flying from his fingers to the far reaches of the room. He rests his chin on his hand, twirls a finger and sits back to the watch the lights spin. 

Blown this far apart, it looks more like a galaxy than a machine.

 

*

 

“Sir,” JARVIS says. “Captain Rogers requests the team’s presence in the kitchen.”

Tony, slotting folded squares of paper together into a ring, murmurs, “For?” without looking up. 

“For a team meeting, sir. I confess the Captain didn’t confide in me the precise details.”

With a flick of his wrist, Tony tosses the paper frisbee across the room. It glides high and steady for a few brief seconds, until it bumps into a light fitting and the segments come apart, raining down to the floor.

“Huh,” Tony says.

He snaps his fingers.

“Tell him on my way.”

He climbs to his feet and heads for the exit, pausing to gather up the fallen pieces of paper as he passes them, finally balling the handful up in his fist and tossing it over his shoulder at the elevator doors. It’s a quick ride up to the penthouse and a quicker walk to the kitchen door.

Tony shoves it open with his elbow, saying, ““Friends, Russians, Asgardian gentlemen, lend me your...” 

He trails off mid-sentence, halfway through the door. He frowns around at the kitchen island-cum-conference table. Everyone else has gotten there before him, which isn’t unusual, and they’re all eating together, which is surreal on more levels than he cares to count. There’s even a plate conscientiously left before the empty seat between Pepper and Romanoff, with a slice of toast waiting for him, as if he’s fallen through a portal into a wholesome family TV show. Thor beams up at him, chewing vigorously; he’s wearing an ‘I love New York’ t-shirt that’s at least one size too small for him.

“You call this a meeting?” Tony says.

“I call it brunch,” Barton says, around a mouthful of pretzels.

“How do you people eat so much?”

Beating out a drum roll on the worktop, Barton straightens up, clears his throat, and points at each of them in turn: “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you alien, Russian, hostess politely joining guests, genetically enhanced, genetically mutated. Hungry,” he adds, pointing at himself.

“Russian. Really. That’s your excuse?” Tony says.

“I am like a bear,” Romanoff says serenely.

“But twice as cuddly.”

She smirks around her mouthful of Pepper’s muesli. Tony flashes a toothy grin at her in return. He strolls around the table, patting Steve on the shoulder and ducking down to kiss Pepper on the cheek as he passes them by. He feels her smile under his lips. Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, he grabs the slice of toast from its plate and shoves it into his mouth as he moves away.

“It’s cold,” he says, chewing.

“You’re welcome,” she says.

“Light of my life,” he adds, tugging open the refrigerator door and sticking his head inside. “And still surprisingly well stocked, despite the carnage. When did I get so much food?”

“When five new people moved into your tower,” Pepper says, “and I updated the grocery delivery schedule.”

“Our tower.” Finishing off his toast in a few quick bites, Tony lifts the lid off a tub of _something_ and gives it a sniff. “And this is...?”

It smells healthy and faintly of garlic. He’s about to dip a finger inside it in the spirit of discovery when Pepper touches his shoulder. She leans smoothly around him to look at the Tupperware in his hands, and when he breathes in he can smell her jasmine soap.

“Hummus,” she says. “Please don’t put your fingers in it.”

She’s pulling her hair back into a neat ponytail, and she adds, “I have to go to that teleconference now.”

“Good luck, have fun, make businessmen cry, et cetera.”

Pepper smiles at him, kisses his cheek. “I always do.”

She waves goodbye to the rest of the team. Bruce waves back and Barton tosses her a pretzel, which she catches one-handed as she walks by, her heels clacking imperiously against the tiled floor. The sound of her departure reverberates down the corridor long after she’s left the room.

Tony takes the hummus with him back to the table and he drops down next to Steve into Pepper’s vacated seat, leaving the seat next to Romanoff empty. She glances up at him, with her eyebrows raised and her mouth full of muesli, and then her gaze drifts past him. Tony turns to look too and sees Steve staring at the open door; the last, faint sounds of Pepper’s heels are still drifting through. 

Tony nudges him in the side, and Steve’s eyes dart towards him and then away again just as quickly. 

“So,” Tony says, dipping his finger into the hummus. “Did you call us here for business or brunch?”

“Business,” Steve says slowly. “But I guess everyone was kinda hungry once we’d all gotten here.”

“And people doubted me when I put our conference room in the kitchen.”

He gapes in mock-outrage and Steve smiles. Grinning sidelong at him, Tony licks the hummus off his fingers. He contemplates, and then rocks back on his stool to dig a bag of chips out of the cupboard; when he rights himself, Steve has looked away again. 

Steve clears his throat.

“Well, folks, Agent Hill has been assigned to liaise with us,” he says. 

“ _Hill?_ ” Barton echoes incredulously.

Steve has barely finished nodding before Barton turns around to stare at Romanoff. She raises her eyebrows and sits up a little straighter, her poker face firmly in place.

“She’s a good agent,” she says. “She follows orders.”

“Well, she’s coming to meet with us in an hour,” Steve says, “which gives us a little time to prepare... Bruce has done all he can and we’re still none the wiser. I think it’s time we shared our intel with SHIELD.”

Barton chokes on a pretzel.

“Objection!” Tony says, knocking his fist on the table like a gavel. “I object.”

Without looking around at him, Romanoff leans sideways and raps her spoon on his wrist, stilling his hand. Still catching his breath, Barton leans forward on his elbows and says, seriously, “You sure about this, Cap? With all respect and affection for my former colleagues, you give an inch, SHIELD takes a mile. We’re big, mean sharks.”

Steve rolls his eyes, just barely.

“We need SHIELD intel, too,” he says, and he turns to Romanoff. “Natasha, what security clearance would someone need to access SHIELD’s collection of HYDRA weapons?”

“A big one,” she says.

“How about the Chituari salvage?”

“Even bigger.”

“What kind of a bargaining chip would we need to get at it?”

Romanoff tilts her head in contemplation, dipping her spoon back into the bowl to chase the final dregs of milk and cereal. Metal scrapes against china.

“The biggest one we’ve got,” she says at last.

She bites down on the spoon and grins around it, toothily, like a shark.

 

*

 

The moment Hill walks through the doorway, her arrival announced by JARVIS, her steps falter. She peers around herself, holding her manila folders tightly to her chest. Her eyes linger dubiously on Thor’s ill-fitting shirt and Tony’s bag of chips.

“This is a kitchen,” she says. “You said conference room.”

“It’s a little from column A, a little from column B,” Tony says. “Chips?”

He holds the bag out to her, shaking it so the chips rustle enticingly. Hill’s frown deepens. She sits down on the nearest vacant stool and, moving empty coffee cups out of the way, spreads her folders out in front of her. She folds her hands neatly on the tabletop. Ignoring Tony, she turns to Barton and Romanoff with a nod.

“Agents,” she says.

“Hill,” Romanoff murmurs, nodding back.

“So is this a demotion or a _pro_ motion?” Barton says. “I haven’t figured it out yet.”

“Neither,” Hill says. “I put myself forwards for the position.”

“Missed us that much?”

“I’ve taken a professional interest in the Avengers Initiative since its inception.”

“You were sceptical since its inception,” Romanoff says.

“Yes.” Hill draws the syllable out. She hesitates, taps her fingers on the cover of a folder and continues, slowly, “I’ve reassessed my opinion.”

“And the Council?”

“I’ve reassessed my opinion,” she repeats. “May I-?”

Romanoff nods. She glances at Barton, who nods as well. With a strained smile at them both, Hill flips open the top folder and pulls out a stack of documents.

“Paper?” Tony says. “Really?”

“Minimises the risk of hacking,” she tells him, pointedly. “These are non-disclosure agreements. Everyone needs to sign before we can proceed. Some of you know state secrets. Some of you,” she adds, frowning at Bruce, “practically _are_ state secrets.”

Bruce smiles pleasantly up at her, pulling a pen from his shirt pocket when she hands him his copy of the agreement. He looks like a private school chemistry teacher. Tony watches Hill take in Bruce’s pocket protector with a baffled expression, and he grins to himself and grabs a document.

He thumbs through the agreement, scanning the legal mumbo jumbo for anything interesting and finding very little. With a yawn, he drops the document onto the table and looks around. Steve has already finished reading and has signed his copy too; he wordlessly passes Tony his pen. The others only have a few pages left to go, except Thor, who keeps flicking back and forth between pages and chuckling to himself with his chin in his hand.

“Is something funny?” Hill asks.

Thor glances up at her, then looks around the table with a laugh.

“Was it a race?” he says. “Forgive me, friends, I have not read such a document before.”

“Oh, sure, laugh a minute, right?” Tony says.

Thor beams. Hill thrusts a pen at him and Thor signs his agreement with a rune on the dotted line, still chuckling. 

“If that’s all,” Hill says, looking disgruntled, “can we begin?” 

“Actually,” Steve says. “Agent Hill, ma’am, if you don’t mind, I’d like to begin. We have a couple requests.”

“Demands,” Tony says.

“Suggestions.” Steve smiles at her. “We would like access to everything you have on HYDRA.”

“And the Chitauri,” Romanoff says.

Steve nods. “Everything. Including access to all the weapons SHIELD has collected.”

Hill stares at him.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he adds.

“That’s all highly classified,” Hill says. “Even I don’t have clearance to all the New York salvage right now.”

“Tell Fury it’s important.”

“Captain, I can’t just-”

“And tell him,” Steve continues, unfazed, “that we’ll be willing to share our own information in return.”

Hill hesitates. She narrows her eyes suspciously at Steve and then at them all, her gaze sweeping around the conference table while she rubs a finger over her lips.

She says, “Okay, what have you got?”

Steve gives Bruce the nod – _the smooth bastard_ , Tony thinks with delight – and Bruce slides the file partway across the table to her. She has to lean forwards to take it, still frowning at them, and then she flips the cover open. She takes in the first few lines and sucks in a sharp breath, her eyes darting back and forth across the page.

“Oh, _hell_ ,” she says, quickly thumbing through the pages. “What are the coordinates for this base? I need to-”

Clearing his throat again, Steve leans forwards and closes the file.

“You need,” he says calmly, when she lifts her head and meets his gaze, “to speak to Fury.”

“Tell him to think of it as a mutual consultation,” Tony adds, with a wide grin.

 

*

 

With no sign of an imminent alien invasion or HYDRA uprising, there’s nothing to do but wait for Fury’s nod. Tony retreats to his lab to twiddle his thumbs. He works on the latest suit upgrades and his contracts and even shows up to a meeting in person, to keep them on their toes. He talks to legal for what feels like five hours and then he spends even longer in a teleconference with NASA, talking about the most powerful telescopes, the most distant stars. It’s fun; he has JARVIS order them all pizza.

It takes a couple days for Hill to get in touch with them again.

“Fury’s agreed to your exchange,” she says briskly the moment she’s connected, her call patched through JARVIS’ speakers to fill the conference room. A myriad of voices fade in and out in the background, as if she’s striding through a hub of buzzing activity. “It’s going to take a little while to get you what you want.”

“How long?” Steve asks.

“A week, maybe longer. We lost a lot of data in the helicarrier damage - _hey_! Are you authorised to touch that?” Someone murmurs ‘no, ma’am, sorry, ma’am’ and Hill strides on, picking up the conversation again without a missed beat. “We have items scattered in various secure locations across the state. The Council and the Government both want control of the New York salvage, Fury... disagrees. This is classified.”

Tony glances over at Barton, who nods without surprise. Not so classified, then. Hill’s determined pace slows to a halt and she lowers her voice.

“The Council doesn’t trust you. You may need to set up a press conference as soon as possible.”

“Are we New York salvage too, then?” Bruce asks dryly.

Hill hesitates.

“I suggest you publically establish the team,” she says. “Before anyone can try to stake a claim in you.”

“I’ll call my publicist,” Tony says.

 

*

 

After he lets his publicist know they need to organise the world’s first press conference for an honest to god superhero team and they need it fast - Sofia takes it in stride; he figures she can take anything in stride after dealing with ‘boss returns from assumed death and builds a flying robot suit’ – it takes less than ten minutes for the company gossip mill to reach Rhodey’s ears.

Tony is so engrossed in the code for JARVIS’ birthday upgrades, he barely notices his cell is ringing until Barton throws a pen at him and JARVIS says, levelly,

“Sir.”

“So, you’re actually doing this?” Rhodey says, the second Tony picks up.

“Define ‘this.’”

“You and your ragtag crew of vigilantes, banding together to save the world?”

Tony grins. “It’s not my fault, they followed me home.”

“Uh-huh. You do realise vigilantism is technically illegal, right?”

“Rhodey. Rhodes. Jim Beam,” Tony says with a reproachful sigh. He leans back in his chair, resting his feet on the edge of his desk. “Is that a hint of envy I detect?”

“Well, Tony, you never call, you never write, you sure as hell never invited me to fight aliens with you.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, are you feeling neglected? If it helps, technically _I_ wasn’t invited to the alien invasion party either. Consultation only. By pure coincidence the invasion came via my rooftop garden.”

“I told you putting your name on it that big was a bad idea.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Tony hesitates. “Look, honeybear, I know you think the world of me and my leadership skills...” Rhodey splutters with laughter and Tony waits until he’s stopped. “But I’m not the one in charge of this operation, I’m just the business-running, tie-wearing side of things. But I can put in a good word with Cap, if you wanna come play in our sandbox.”

Tucking his cell in against his shoulder, Tony peers around himself. It is late afternoon, with a muggy, golden glow to the air, the sun just on the cusp of setting. The room is silent and empty except for Barton, who’s sprawled on one of the new couches. He’s reading a copy of Guns and Ammo with his combat boots propped on the coffee table. Tony snaps his fingers repeatedly until Barton licks a finger, folds down the corner of the page and looks up at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Where’s Cap?” Tony mouths at him.

“What?” Barton mouths back.

“ _Cap_.”

“ _What?_ ”

Rhodey draws in a slow breath over the telephone. “Cap, as in Captain America?”

“The one and only,” Tony says, staring pointedly at Barton. “Captain America. Big, blonde, national treasure. Cap.”

Rhodey blows his breath back out again. On the couch, Barton shakes his head and, leisurely turning another page of his magazine, says, “No hablo ingles.”

Tony flips him off with both hands, wedging his cell tighter between shoulder and ear.

“Yeah, you like that, baby?” he says to Rhodey, dropping his hands and taking hold of his cell again, while Barton sniggers from the couch. “I’ll tell him about all your big, shiny, patriotic medals.”

“He’s out on the balcony,” Barton says, still sniggering. He jabs a thumb back over his shoulder toward the balcony door, and crosses his ankles on the coffee table with a contented sigh.

“I can’t believe _you_ of all people know Captain America now,” Rhodey says, ruefully.

“I know, I know.”

Tony grins, hopping up out of his desk chair. He crosses the room swiftly, leaning over the couch as he goes to tug Barton’s magazine up out of his hands. Barton snatches it back barely a split second later, fast enough that Tony gets a papercut, but he’s still grinning when he licks the drop of blood from his thumb and pushes through the balcony door.

“I’m as surprised as you are,” he adds, walking out into the cool October air.

The sky is hazy and the sun is bright, pure and golden, and there’s a sharp, cold wind that blows tears into his eyes. For a few seconds Tony has to blink and lift up a hand to shield his eyes. Squinting, he spots a shape that could be human at the far end of the balcony. He heads towards it.

“Seriously,” he says. “He’s right here. I could put in a good word. Tell him you think he’s dreamy.”

The light clears from Tony’s vision to reveal Steve watching him. He has looked up at the sound of Tony’s approach, but there’s a sketchpad propped against the edge of the wall and a pencil in his hand, tip still balanced on the paper. Tony nods at him, pointing his fingers at his own eyes and then at Steve’s eyes. Steve frowns back.

“No,” Rhodey says. “Actually, by all means, feel free to tell _Captain America_ about all my accomplishments. But work is... more important, right now.”

“Less fun, though.”

“Well, we can’t all save the world.”

“I promise I’ll invite you to the next apocalypse.” Steve is still watching him, eyebrow raised, so Tony waves a hand and shakes his head. “Stand down, Captain. But you’ll still be our military liaison, right? I know you can liaise; I’ve seen you do it.”

“You realise I’m only in the air force, don’t you?”

Tony scoffs. “But you know the super secret military handshake. You’re in the clubhouse. You’re invited to the slumber parties.”

“There are no slumber parties.”

“It’ll be fine. You’ll make it work. I believe in you.”

“Tony...” Rhodey begins, so Tony hangs up. He glances sideways at Steve, sliding his cell back into his pocket.

“If you don’t hear them turn you down, it doesn’t count,” he says.

“Sure,” Steve says, sounding sceptical. 

Tony smirks at him. Propping his elbow on the wall, he peers down at Steve’s sketchpad.

“Hey,” he says. He looks back up at the skyline before them, then down at the drawing again, and then he nudges Steve in the ribs. “Not half bad. You’ve really caught the, uh.”

He waves his fingers at the horizon.

“The light quality?” Steve suggests.

“The air pollution.”

Steve chuckles. His gaze tracks the length of Tony’s arm, hand, fingers, until he too is staring out at the horizon. The city skyline, drenched in gold.

“Bigger viewing deck,” Tony mutters to himself. “We need 360 degrees. Can I borrow a bit of paper?” the last to Steve.

Shrugging in acquiescence, Steve flicks through his sketchpad to find a blank page. Tony catches glimpses of park scenes, cityscapes, a few sketches of older buildings obviously drawn from memory, and then a few pages of loose, quick sketches of Romanoff stretching for a workout. Then Steve tugs a page out and passes it to Tony, and Tony pulls the pencil from its loose grip in Steve’s other hand.

“So, you’re a landscape guy, huh?” Tony says, frowning down at his blank piece of paper, the corners flapping in the breeze.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s all buildings and trees in there.” Tony waves his hand at Steve’s sketchpad without looking up from his paper. Lowering his hand, he begins to write and he adds, slowly, “Except for Widow.”

“Yeah, she’s a terrific model. Most people get too self-conscious if they know you’re drawing them,” Steve says. “Especially if they’re trying to relax for you. But Natasha’s always in control of herself. Comes with being a spy, I figure.”

“Hm,” Tony says.

He lowers the pencil and thrusts the paper out at Steve. Steve takes it automatically, glancing down at its message: ‘HI, RHODEY xxx’

“Hold that up and look handsome,” Tony says. “I’ll take a picture.”

Steve frowns at him.

“Broody. Nice, that’ll do.”

Pulling his cell out again, Tony takes a few photos and sends them all to Rhodey. When he looks up from his cell, Steve is still frowning, gazing down at the sign in his hands.

“Who’s Rhodey?” he asks.

“A kind, gentle soul. He’s our man on the inside. Or he will be, once you win him over for me.”

“Is he a homosexual? I mean, a – a gay?”

“Nah, his feelings for you are as pure as the driven snow. He loves you like he loves America and, uh... fighter jets.”

“Right,” Steve says, looking dubious. “I wasn’t... You said to look handsome for him, so I...”

His jaw clenching shut, he thrusts the piece of paper back at Tony, so Tony takes it. He folds it in half lengthways. Running his fingernails up and down the crease, he clears his throat.

“You know that’s okay now, right?” he says, folding the top corners in towards the centre. “Because Captain America’s kind of a gay icon these days – tight pants, bright colours, all those muscles; it had to happen – so if you need to have an old timey freak-out, do it quick.”

“I do,” Steve says. “I mean, I know that.”

“Good. Great. Tada,” he adds, pinching the base of his paper airplane tight and holding it up between finger and thumb.

Steve is staring at him inscrutably.

“It’s poor, I know,” Tony says. “It was spontaneous.”

“I can see that,” Steve says.

Tony grins at him. Pulling his arm back, he aims for the top of the next skyscraper along and throws the paper plane as hard as he can. The wind picks it up right away, tugging it from Tony’s fingers the second he lets go; the plane speeds away, spiralling downwards into the city.

“Look at it go,” Tony says.

He glances sideways at Steve, who has lifted a hand up to shield his eyes, rubbing a knuckle against his eyebrow and squinting in the glare of the low hanging sun. He’s smiling to himself. The light is bright on his face.

“Hey. You - doing okay?” Tony says.

“Yeah,” Steve says. “I’m okay.”

The paper plane has disappeared when Tony look back to the sky again.

 

*

 

Working with Hill, Sofia gets a conference room booked and the eager press prepared within a matter of days. Standing in their impromptu dressing room, Tony can hear the excited voices building in the conference room next door, everyone slowly assembling for the Avengers debutante ball.

“Remind me again why we aren’t doing this at Stark Tower?” he asks the room at large.

“Neutral ground,” Romanoff says. “We don’t want people to think we’re working for Stark Industries.”

“We’ll always have Paris,” he says. He blows her a kiss and Romanoff rolls her eyes, her lips twitching.

“Hold still,” Pepper says.

Tony holds still, tilting his chin up so Pepper can straighten his collar.

Despite the noise growing next door, everyone is quiet. Only Thor, in his shiniest armour with a ceremonial helmet tucked under his arm, looks excited; it’ll be another Midgardian experience to write home to his parents about, Tony figures. Bruce is fidgeting nervously in the corner while Romanoff, wearing something that looks like it came from Natalie Rushman’s wardrobe, murmurs reassurances. Even Barton looks on edge. Only Steve is an oasis of calm, carefully combing his hair, with his jaw set as if he’s preparing for battle. He’s wearing a shirt that looks brand new, white and crisp and too cheap for Tony’s tastes; it stretches too tightly across his shoulders, pulling taut with every movement of his arms. Tony reminds himself to give him the number for Tony’s tailor and he lifts his cell to take a picture for Rhodey.

Pepper taps his shoulder and he lets his hand drop.

“Remember, try to be careful,” she murmurs, smoothing the collar down and moving on to straighten his tie. “Don’t do anything reckless or... get in arguments with reporters, or give anyone any kind of ammunition against the business or your team, or-”

She tugs too hard, tightening the knot and pulling the tie crooked again, and she pauses in her pep talk to curse under her breath. 

“Pep. Pepper.” Tony pats the back of her hand. “Come on, stop strangling me. It’s going to be fine.”

Pepper breathes out slowly, and then she laughs. She squeezes his fingers.

“Sorry, I’m... I don’t know why I’m so nervous.”

“I blame myself, I’ve given you a complex.”

“A small one.” Clearing her throat, she lets go of his hands, pushing them back down, and she returns her attention to his tie. “Just try to remember you’re not the only one this time. There are five other lives at stake, Tony. Everything you say is going to reflect on your team from now on.”

“Our team.”

“Your team,” she says firmly, unpicking the knot. She smoothes the two loose ends of his tie down over his chest and then, her eyes fixed on the silk, she crosses the ends over and begins to tie the knot again. She steps back to admire her handiwork and, taking a deep breath, she smiles at him.

“How do I look?” he says. “Ravishing?”

“Close enough.”

Before he can respond, her cell phone beeps. Pepper tugs it out of her purse and frowns down at the caller ID, her lips pressing thinly together. She rolls her eyes when she looks back up at him. 

“I have to take this,” she sighs. “There were some minor problems with the Shaw contract. Which we _fixed_ , but you know how he gets. I’m sorry, I wanted to...”

“Hey, work takes priority.”

“Of course.” She kisses him on the cheek and, casting a glance around the room with a rueful smile, she says, “Good luck, everyone.”

“We shall honour you in your absence,” Thor tells her gravely.

“Thank you, Thor, that’s... very kind.”

Steering clear of the door to the press conference, which is getting louder with every second, she slips out a side door into a plain stairwell, her phone to her ear. She says, “Mr Shaw, how can I – No, no, not interrupting at all,” and the door snaps shut behind her.

Tony tugs at his collar and lifts his cell back up again.

“Hey,” he says. “We’re trending on twitter.”

“Oh, good,” says Bruce without inflection.

Romanoff pats him on the shoulder. “Everyone is excited. Nobody is interested in hard-hitting questions today. They’ll ask about your favourite colour, not about Harlem.”

“Right, they’re gonna focus on Thor, because he’s an alien in a funny hat, and me because I’m me, and Cap because he’s... _Cap_ ,” Tony says. “Widow will get some special attention because she’s got mysterious feminine wiles. All you and Barton need to do is sit and look pretty and it’ll be a cakewalk.”

Barton bats his lashes at him, clasping his hands to his heart.

“Funny hat?” Thor murmurs.

There’s a soft knock on the door. It opens a crack and Sofia peeks through, looking unruffled. Over her shoulder, the front row of press is barely visible, craning their necks like schoolchildren while they try to catch a glimpse of the team.

“You’re up in five,” she says. “Stick to what we’ve prepared, use your common sense and you’ll be fine.”

She shoots Tony a pointed look. Tony grins at her. She’s going to get a huge Christmas bonus.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Steve says. “We really appreciate all your hard work.”

Sofia beams at him brightly. She slips back out the door to ready the press, looking about the happiest Tony has ever seen her. He watches Thor heave Bruce to his feet one-handed, Barton clapping Bruce on the shoulder and saying, “Picture them naked and crying, man,” and then he turns and nudges Steve in the side.

“Sweet talker,” he says.

“Your necktie is crooked,” Steve replies.

“Yeah, can’t look too good, I’ll show Barton up,” Tony says, tugging at his tie while Barton flips him off over Steve’s shoulder. “Hey, I have an idea – hold this.”

He turns on the camera and shoves his cell phone at Steve; Steve catches on quickly, holding it up at neck height so Tony can straighten his tie on camera.

“How do I look?”

“Neater, I guess.”

“You’re a real charmer,” Tony says, taking his cell back. He holds it out in front of him so they’re both in frame, throws up a peace symbol and takes a photo. Glancing down at it before he sends it to Rhodey, he adds, “And you smile like a twelve-year-old at his first school dance. I can see why the ladies love you.”

Behind the door, the conference room erupts in applause. Tony lowers his cell and the dorky smile fades from Steve’s face. He looks away from Tony and towards the rest of the team. 

“That’s our cue, folks,” he says, Captain America once more.

Nodding Tony pulls his shades out of his pocket and slips them on. Over his shoulder, he hears Thor mutter, “Should I not wear my helmet?”

“You should definitely wear your helmet,” Romanoff replies.

 

*

 

It is a cakewalk. From the moment they step out and take their seats, amid a sea of flash photography, and Tony begins to read word-for-word their short statement, the buzz in the room is more excited than just about every press conference he’s ever attended. Including the one for his own return from the dead. 

The questions speed by quickly, as cheerful and optimistic as Romanoff had predicted; she smiles prettily and cracks jokes the whole while, somehow avoiding any discussion about her shadowy past or still pretty damn shadowy present. They talk about exciting new possibilities and humanity’s rapidly expanding knowledge of the universe, and Tony assures SI stockholders that being a bona fide superhero won’t detract from his work for the company.

Finally, glancing off to the side, Tony catches Sofia’s eye. She nods, tapping her watch, and Tony clears his throat and lifts his hands up.

“That’s all, folks,” he says. “I wish we could stay like this forever, I really do, but we have to be home in time for Dog Cops. So, uh, one more question. You? Guy in the ugly hat? No, I’m kidding, the hat’s great.”

The guy, tugging sheepishly on the brim of his hat now everyone has turned to stare at it, clears his throat and asks, “Captain Rogers, how are you adapting to the future?”

Steve’s smile shifts slightly, not quite dimming, and he says, “Well, it’s been a surprise. But it sure is interesting. I thought there’d be more flying cards by now, for starters.”

“I’ll get right on that,” Tony says, leaning forwards into his microphone. Their audience laughs and Tony twists in his seat just enough that he can catch Steve’s eye; but Steve isn’t looking at him. Instead, he’s frowning past Tony at Thor, who is sitting up very straight in his seat.

“My friends,” Thor say slowly, the laughter in the room trailing off as he rises to his feet; he towers larger than life over everyone in his helmet and cape. “My friends, can you feel-”

He’s cut off by the loud cursing of a cameraman at the back of the room. The guy shakes his camera and keeps on cursing, unaware of the heads turning towards him. Thor remains motionless, still frowning at the doors. 

“Thor-” Romanoff begins.

Tony feels the hairs on the back of his arms stand on end. His ears pop. The lights flicker, once, and then,

“Down!” Steve shouts. “Everyone get down and cover your eyes!”

He has the kind of voice that people instinctively just obey.

Even so, things happen so fact that even Tony can barely process it. Steve is still shouting out his command when he grabs Tony too hard by the collar and yanks him down out of his chair; and in that same moment there’s an almighty crash, the sound of every lightbulb in the room exploding, barely audible over the shocked screams; and out of the corner of his eye, Tony sees Thor leaping over the table, glass raining down around him, until Steve’s hand pushes down on the back of his head and Tony ducks down under the table again.

It all takes two, three seconds tops. The space between one breath and the next. As quickly as it started, the conference room goes quiet and unnaturally still, with a tang of ozone to the air. Breathing out slowly, Tony drops his hands from where they had pressed instinctively over his chest. He loosens his tie and pops a couple buttons and hooks a finger into the neck of his shirt, tugging it outwards to check.

Steve is watching, so Tony nods at him.

“Indestructible,” he says, rapping a knuckle against the glass.

Apparently that’s what Steve was waiting for, because he relaxes minutely before he tenses up again, leaping to his feet and disappearing over the top of the table in one smooth movement. Tony gets up slower. Glass is still tinkling and crunching all around them. Romanoff and Barton look relatively unfazed as they follow Steve around to the front of the stage, Barton already murmuring into his earpiece and Romanoff pausing on the sidelines to help Sofia to her feet, but Bruce rubs at his throat, wincing. Steve must have tugged him down too.

“Is anyone hurt?” Steve asks, gently, looking around at them all. 

Nobody says yes, but nobody says no either. His gaze lingers on Sofia, who shakes her head. The crowd is shifting, beginning to come back to life and climb to their feet. Thor has disappeared, but he’s left his cape behind; a group of reporters in the front row are huddled underneath it.

“Okay, folks,” Steve says. He jumps down off the stage and onto the floor, to help a shaky guy get up. “Move away from the doors now. That’s it, everyone come up front here. Nice and easy. Watch out for the glass.” 

As people start to move forward, glass crunching underfoot and chairs scraping as they’re moved aside, Steve leans in closer to Barton. 

“Hill?” he says, voice low.

Barton shakes his head slowly, face angled away from the crowd that’s inching closer. “Can’t reach her. SHIELD communications are down, at least on this end.”

Steve nods. “I can’t reach Thor either.”

Tony looks between them, then looks down at his Avengers communicator. Nothing happens when he thumbs the corner. Cursing, he tugs his cell out of his pocket and stares down at that too; it’s dark and unresponsive, a useless little rectangle of plastic. 

“Everything’s down,” he says. “Could be EMP – that’s an electromagnetic pulse. Hang on.”

He darts to the windows that line the side of the room and peers down at the street below, craning his neck back and forth to take in as much of the view as possible. Everything is normal: traffic moving at a crawl but not immobile; street lights flashing; everyone talking on their cell phones and lights on in the windows across the street. 

He heads back to Steve and shrugs, waving a hand at the view.

“It’s local. Whatever’s happened, looks like it’s just this hotel hit.”

“Okay,” Steve says, standing up straight. He speaks low and fast. “We need to get out there and see what’s going on. Widow, with me. Hawkeye, I want you at the main doors, keeping watch. What other exits we got?”

Barton nods and strides away to take his post, while Romanoff crosses her arms and quietly waits. Tony jerks his thumb at the door to their impromptu dressing room. 

“Thataway, you can get to the staff stairs.”

“Watch it,” Steve says. “If we can get out, someone else can get in. Keep everyone away from the doors. If one of us hasn’t checked back in in five, scout it out, Tony, see if you can get folks out that way.”

Tony glances at his watch. The hands are motionless. He shakes his wrist, then sighs.

“I’ll count,” he says, magnanimously.

Steve’s lips flicker with the brief hint of a smile. He claps Tony on the shoulder – his fingers are very warm – and then he turns to Bruce.

“Hulk is last resort. This space is too confined. You two see if you can figure out a little of what’s going on here. Could be something hidden in the room triggered this, uh.” He hesitates, frowns. “This electromagnetic pulse?”

“Got it, Cap.”

Finally, Steve turns back to Romanoff and nods towards the main doors. Romanoff nods back and draws a handgun from a holster Tony hadn’t even realised she was wearing, hidden beneath the folds of her jacket. She moves forwards silently, keeping to the edge of the room. Steve lingers to cast an eye around him. People are beginning to whisper to each other again as they pick their way around the broken glass, the tension still running high but the initial shock wearing off.

“Folks, just sit tight and stay calm,” he says. “We’re going to see what’s happening, but we’ll get you out of here as soon as we can.”

Romanoff slips out the door first, Steve close behind her. There’s a moment of silence, as if everyone is holding their breath while they wait for the sounds of violence, but nothing comes. Clint takes up his post by the doors, one side propped open just enough that he can look down the corridor. He too has his gun drawn and ready. Tony lets out his breath. He claps his hands together.

“So, anyone seen any good movies lately?”

They stare blankly up at him.

“Yeah,” he sighs, “me neither.”

 

*

 

It’s only been a few minutes since Steve and Romanoff left to investigate when there’s a buzz and a click and a rushing sensation that makes the hair on Tony’s arms stand on end. He’s sitting on their conference table, looking over a stack of cameras and recording equipment for anything unusual, when every cell phone in the room comes back to life in a cacophony of ringtones and relieved voices. In the split second it takes him to jump to his feet, his own pockets start buzzing: his cell and his communicator, joined in harmony; and then the fire alarm rips through the air and drowns it all out.

Bruce, examining the singed light fittings, throws his hands over his ears and grimaces. Across the room, Barton is already talking loudly and rapidly into his earpiece. He snaps his fingers at Tony, points at his ear and mouths, “Hill.”

Tony taps his own earpiece and says, “Cap? Do you... copy? Are we on fire?”

“I copy. We’re not on fire,” Steve responds right away, sounding a little amused. His voice is close and clear despite the hubbub of raised voices in the background. Tony relaxes at the sound of it. He climbs down from their stage, waves his hands at Barton and Bruce and mouths, “it’s Cap.”

He pulls his cell out of his pocket, still ringing. Pepper’s face stares up at him from the caller ID and he smiles down at her.

“The situation’s under control,” Steve says. “Widow set the alarm off so we can clear the building quickly – just till we’re sure it’s secure. We’re heading back right now.”

“Anyone hurt?”

“Only the fella who did this. Agent Hill tackled him.”

“Did I miss all the fun?”

“Not really. I – hang on.”

Looking around, Tony sees Barton step back from his post with a nod and a thumbs up. The doors open wide, the corridor beyond windowless and dark, and then Steve steps through into the light. Murmuring to Barton, he looks around for a moment until he spots Tony and Bruce and hurries over. Thor hangs back behind him, looking sheepish.

“Everything okay?” Steve asks.

“No problems,” Tony says.

Bruce, still wincing at the fire alarm, shakes his head. “I couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary, but this isn’t really my area of expertise. Once we get the floor clear...”

Tony nods, looking back down at his cell, which has stopped ringing. “Let me just...”

“Sure.” 

Over their heads, the fire alarm cuts out at last. The silence falls so suddenly it leaves the room stunned for a moment, until someone cheers. Steve smiles up at the ceiling.

“That’ll be Black Widow,” he says. 

He claps Tony on the shoulder and moves away from him to take charge of evacuating the room. Bruce and Thor follow after him, Thor pausing on his way to collect his cape from the debris and drape it around his shoulders. Selecting Pepper’s number, Tony half listens to Steve begin to talk, his words a low rumble just on the edge of hearing.

Pepper answers her cell a split-second into the first ring, gasping, “Tony! Oh my god, what’s going _on_? Are you okay?”

She stares up at him with her face pale and her eyes wide and anxious, gaze darting back and forth between him and the glimpses of Steve organising the crowd in the background. 

“I’m fine, everything’s fine,” he says. “Are _you_ okay?”

“Yes, I’m – I took my call in the lounge, so I could at least watch your conference on the TV, and then suddenly there was this power cut and we all heard _explosions_ -”

“A few lights blew out.”

“-and my cell wouldn’t turn on, so I couldn’t call you. Nobody could check the news and they wouldn’t let us back up upstairs.”

“Where are you now?”

“I’m in the lobby,” she says. She breathes out slowly. Some of the tension eases from around her eyes. “But I’m fine. We’re all fine.”

“I’ll be down in...” Tony glances around the room; the atmosphere has relaxed now Steve is back and the threat has passed and the damn alarm has shut up, and people are beginning to filter out of the main room towards the staff stairs. The pace is slow. “I’ll be down in a few, okay? Gotta get everyone out of here first. Stay where you are and I’ll come find you. I’m sending Sofia down – she’s fine too.”

“I’m in the lobby,” Pepper says again.

“I’ll come find you.”

She nods and Tony ends the call, slipping his cell away. He peers around until he spots Sofia in the dwindling crowd and waves her over. She looks calm. He figures having your boss return from assumed death and build a flying robot suit really does make a few minor explosions seem like a walk in the park.

“You okay?” he says. “Hey, it’s something to tell the kids about, right?”

“Mr Stark,” she says briskly, “if I’m going to keep doing this for your team, I want a raise. And Captain America’s autograph for my son.”

“Sofia,” he says, hand on his heart. “You stick with the team, I’ll send Cap to the kid’s birthday party.”

“Deal. It’s in March.”

“Put it in my calendar. Look, see if you can find Pepper when you get downstairs. She’s in the lobby, she’s kinda freaked out. Tell her nobody’s dead. Buy her a martini or something.”

“Of course.”

Tony watches her go, then look around as the doors open again and Romanoff slips through. She murmurs something to Barton too low to make out before she makes a beeline for Tony.

“He didn’t have anything on him,” she says, “and I couldn’t find any signs of a device or tampering out there just now. Lights didn’t blow out above or below, so it must be on this floor. But,” she adds, with a shrug. “I’m no scientist.” 

As quickly as she came, she walks away to herd the last few stragglers through the side door. 

Barton watches her departing back, then glances at Tony. He nods towards the crack in the doors, nudging it open a little further with his boot, and through the gap they watch a group of SHIELD agents and paramedics pass by with an innocuous-looking man out cold on a gurney. He’s young and weedy. He looks like the sort of unassuming guy who works in tech support and spends his life instructing little old ladies to turn it off and then on again.

“Scrawny,” Tony mutters.

Barton glances sideways at him and says, with a grim smirk, “Doesn’t mean he can’t be dangerous.”

 

*

 

Down in the lobby, he finds Pepper standing by the reception desk, deep in the middle of two conversations at once, one on her cell and one with Sofia. She looks harried and tired and her hair is slipping out of what was once an impeccably neat bun. Easing his way through the lingering crowd of SHIELD agents and hotel security, curious guests and staff attempting to clear the lobby, Tony calls her name. Her head whips around in his direction and she passes her cell to Sofia, who picks up the thread of the phone conversation without missing a beat. She grabs his arm and draws him aside to the edge of the room.

“Tony,” she breathes. “What _happened?_ We thought the hotel was under attack.”

“It was just one guy,” Tony says, patting the back of her hand. “He sneaked in, shouted a bit, then Hill roundhouse kicked him in the face – I think Thor’s in love – and security came down on him like a tonne of bricks. He barely made it out of the elevator.”

“So no aliens? Or Hammer, or...?”

“Nothing. Sorry, Pep, can I – I’m losing sensation in my fingers here.” He gently pries her hand away from its grip around his wrist. “No aliens, I promise. Unless they’ve developed highly advanced camouflage. And I guess Thor’s humanoid, so...”

“Thanks, that’s reassuring,” Pepper says, shooting him an exasperated look, but she lets go of his arm, smoothing the crease out of his sleeve before she steps back and looks him up and down. Lips pursed, she plucks a sliver of glass from his hair and raises her eyebrows.

“Our floor was hit hardest,” he says. “Everywhere else just... experienced some technical difficulties.”

“Do you know what he wanted yet? Was he coming for you, or one of the others? The whole team?”

“We’ll know more once he’s recovered from Hill’s foot.”

Pepper huffs out a breath, still frowning at the glass in her hand. “But what did he _do_? Everything stopped working.”

“Hey, not everything-”

She stiffens. She slowly lifts her head to look up at him again, and Tony raps his knuckles against the arc reactor with a grin.

“I didn’t even think about-” she begins in a hushed voice.

“Hey, hey. It’s fine, I’m fine, ticker’s ticking.”

“But what if it _had_ -”

“It didn’t.” He touches her hand. “Come on, it takes more than that to stop me. I survived an alien invasion. Loki threw me through a window. And then there’s the palladium poisoning, and Hammer, and _Obie_ -”

He counts it off on his fingers. Pepper stares up at him, her face still too pale, her eyes still too wide and her gaze darting back and forth over his face. But slowly her expression relaxes into a wry smile.

“That isn’t as comforting as you think it is,” she says. She glances over his shoulder, nods and lifts a hand to his chest, giving him a gentle push away from her. “I think your team needs you.”

Tony looks around to see Steve, deep in conversation with Romanoff and the harried-looking hotel manager. His gaze is skimming back and forth over the heads of the slowly dissipating crowd while he talks and when he catches Tony’s eye, he lifts his chin in question. Tony nods at him and holds up a finger, then turns back to Pepper. She is still smiling wryly.

“Back to work,” she says.

“Light bulbs need avenging, right?” 

“Right.” She pecks him on the cheek, smoothing her hand down his shirt, and adds, “I should get back to work too.”

“Don’t wait up,” he says. “This could take a while.”

Pepper nods. She kisses him again quickly and pulls away, retrieving her cell phone and the threads of her conversation from Sofia and glancing back once over her shoulder as she goes. Tony watches until the doors have closed behind her, then he turns in the nearly empty lobby and heads back to the team.

 

*

 

With the perimeter secured, they assemble on the floor of the conference room. The corridors are still dim, the carpet still littered with broken glass from the blown-out bulbs, the emergency lights glowing a pale, sickly green. Tony inhales deeply. Crouching down, he rubs a hand over the carpet and winces at the crackle of static electricity.

“My friends,” Thor begins.

The hairs on Tony’s arms are standing on end. He straightens up and shoves his hands into his pockets.

“I apologise,” Thor says, “for my hasty actions. I should have not leapt without looking, and nor should I have abandoned my team in a moment of strife. My actions were driven not by selfishness but by surprise.”

“It’s fine, Thor,” says Steve. “But we need to start training together. We have to think as a unit, so if communications ever go down again we can predict each other’s movements.”

“Communications won’t go down again,” Tony says.

Steve glances sideways at him, his eyebrows raised, but then he nods and smiles grimly and says, “Good. Widow?”

“No identity match yet,” Romanoff says promptly. “He’s still out. Cap... Hill reports he started to come round in transit – the radio went haywire, so he was sedated. They were worried something might happen to the copter.”

Tony whistles low through his teeth. “X-ray him. Scan that man.”

“You think he has an implant?”

“Implanted, ingested... It’s a brave new world, right?” Tony shrugs. “Post alien invasion. Hey, maybe HYDRA’s been funding nanotechnology when it hasn’t been busy cramming portals into ugly toy guns.”

Romanoff shakes her head. “He wasn’t HYDRA. Too messy. If he’d kept his cool another hundred yards, he would have made it to the press conference.”

“Under duress, then?” Steve says.

Romanoff presses her lips together, shaking her head again slowly.

“It’s possible,” she says.

“What was the guy shouting?” Barton asks. “Before Hill introduced him to her boot?”

“Hill says it was ‘you did this.’”

“One of us,” Bruce says, “or _all_ of us?”

For a moment, nobody speaks. Tony glances up at Steve, whose expression is grim. Then Bruce clears his throat, slipping his glasses off his nose. He cleans the lenses on the edge of his shirt and says, slowly, “Thor, what _did_ you feel?”

“If it was Loki...” Barton begins, his face dark.

Thor holds up a hand. “Nay, peace, I did not feel my brother’s presence. I felt...” 

He hesitates, frowning in deep thought. 

“I felt,” he says, “as if we were stood in the middle of a great and terrible storm.”

 

*

 

They search the area inside and out, checking every room. Thor pulls the carpets up with one hand, to the consternation of the hotel manager until Tony promises the Foundation will cover all repair costs. 

It’s already growing dark when Tony makes a quick trip to the tower with a grocery list of equipment. He grabs some pizza on the way back. Sitting on the floor with his laptop on his knees, he writes a program to scan the hotel’s security footage, interior and exterior, for any physical matches of their man since the day the press conference was announced. Under Barton’s direction, a SHIELD clean-up crew pick tiny fragments of debris out of the carpet with tweezers. A SHIELD doctor calls them partway through the night, to report that they’ve put John Doe through every scan and test they have got and found nothing except a slightly elevated temperature.

It’s long gone dark, and Pepper is fast asleep, by the time Tony gets back home and crawls into bed beside her. He reaches out across the sheets towards her, but falls asleep with his hand in empty air. 

 

*

 

He wakes slowly, drifting out of his dream inch by inch until only fragments remain: shadows and movement and voices, and the sensation of falling, all merging seamlessly into the cotton against his cheek and the soft sound of breathing.

“Am I really awake?” he asks without opening his eyes.

“Yes,” he hears her murmur.

He shifts, stretches, pushing the bed linen down from his face. The air is cool. He opens his eyes and frowns at the clock face in front of him, the gently glowing digits that read 5:27. The room is still dark, but a softer kind of dark than the dark inside his dreams. Rolling over onto his other side, he looks at the shadow of Pepper.

She’s sitting on the edge of the bed, wrapped in a sheet, with her knees drawn up to her chest. Her face is turned towards the window. The low haze of starlight and light pollution has smoothed the tension from her face, left her looking younger, softer.

“Are _you_ really awake?” Tony says, sitting up.

She lifts her chin. “I think so.”

He shifts closer to her, crawling over their tangled sheets and the cold, empty space on her side of the bed, until he can sit down behind her. He drops his chin onto her shoulder. He feels her lean back against him briefly, and then she leans forwards again and pulls the sheet tighter around her shoulders.

“How long have you been sitting here?” he says.

Pepper whispers, “Long enough.”

“You know these sheets are Egyptian cotton, right? Thousand thread count? They cost more than a,” Tony yawns, stifles the yawn, “a flat screen TV.”

Pepper makes a noncommittal noise that Tony feels through the hitch of her shoulders against his chin, through his own shoulder where it’s pressed against her back. He touches her arm.

“I bought these sheets,” she says, after a pause.

“So you _know_ how comfortable and ludicrously expensive they are.”

She tilts her head towards him, smiling with one corner of her mouth. Looking at him out of the corner of one eye, she says, 

“Is this your way of asking me to come back to bed?”

“Busted.”

She laughs once and shakes her head and looks away again, shifting forwards to rest her chin on her knees. The movement dislodges Tony and he sits up straighter, looking over her shoulder, following her gaze up to – the sky, the few, faint stars. The blackness in between the stars.

“Tony,” Pepper breathes. “Did you believe in aliens?”

“Well, I sure as hell do now. Hard not to when ET keeps leaving his armour on the couch.”

“But before?”

Tony hesitates. He frowns, lowering his gaze to the skyscrapers.

“I guess I always figured the universe was too damn big and complicated,” he says slowly, “for just _one_ planet to hit the sentient organism jackpot. But aliens smashing up my penthouse and shooting at me with freaky arm lasers... that, I didn’t see coming.”

“I don’t think anyone on the planet could have seen this coming. I think,” she adds, in a voice so soft he has to lean in closer to catch her words, “we’re still in shock. Everything has changed.”

Lifting her head and lowering her knees abruptly, Pepper turns around to face him. Her feet hit the carpet with a muted thump. She lays one hand on his knee.

“You realise you were the first human being to actually _see_ an alien world, don’t you?”

“Only because Thor hadn’t gotten round to taking Jane Foster to meet the parents first.”

She stares at him as though she’s waiting for something. Her eyes are bright in the dark. Her fingertips are cold.

“Tony,” she says, “I-”

“I’m not so sure it was an alien _world_ , anyway. Might have just been an alien space station. I don’t know. I didn’t exactly get a great look at it before I – you know, blew it all to hell.”

“Tony,” Pepper says again, her fingers clenching on his knee. “I think I...”

“Wish I coulda had a closer look,” he murmurs. “Minus the missile.”

She trails off and lifts her hand away. They look at each other in silence in the dark. The arc reactor light shines in her eyes.

At last, Pepper draws in a deep breath. Her voice is stilted when she begins to speak again, when she says, “I understand why you’re doing this. I understand why this is all so important to you. That – that’s all I wanted to say.”

He curls his fingers in the ends of her hair. His brain feels slow and foggy with sleep, and there is a headache building somewhere deep behind his eyes, and the final, clinging fragments of a dream of movement scratching somewhere even deeper.

“You are way out of my league,” he says.

It startles a laugh out of her. Her shoulders relax, drooping low, and then she bites her lip and turns her head away. She unwinds her hair from his fingers as gently as if she were untying a knot.

“I’m too awake,” she says. “I’m going to get up, get some work done. You go back to sleep.”

“Okay.”

Leaning back on his elbows, he watches her untangle herself from the sheets and move around the room, slipping on her bathrobe, gathering up her work cell and tablet. She pauses in front of the window to brush her hair in her reflection, her eyes finding his eyes in the glass. 

“Go back to sleep, Tony,” she says again.

Through the glass the sky is turning greyish. He flops down onto her side of the bed, her cold pillow. When he closes his eyes, he can feel himself falling backwards, into the darkness.


End file.
